One of the most persistent maintenance tasks associated with automobile and other motor vehicles use is that associated with maintenance of the required quantity of motor oil within the engine. Even the best of automobiles seems to require occasional oil added to the crank case to maintain the appropriate level. Thus, while periodic maintenance at automobile service facilities may attend to the required changes of motor oil, virtually all vehicle operators find themselves required to add motor oil from time to time. As is often the case, such addition of motor oil is required at times which are inconvenient for the user. Most motor oils are packaged and sold in quart size containers which in early years comprised cylindrical cans having generally flat top and bottom services. Such cans were extremely messy to use without the aid of a large funnel or the like and in recent years have been replaced by molded plastic bottle-like containers having extended neck portions and molded plastic caps. The latter are generally removable in a threaded attachment. While the advent and proliferation of such molded plastic containers has, to some extent, reduced the mess associated with the addition of oil to the vehicle crank case, it still remains a messy and inconvenient task.
In most cases, the fabrication and design of motor vehicle engine configurations has done little to improve the ease of adding motor oil by the consumer. In fact, despite this long standing need, motor vehicle engines are nonetheless designed with inconveniently located and difficult to reach crank case filling apertures. In typical motor vehicle engines, an upwardly extending tubular spout is provided somewhere near the outer edge of the engine. However, the extended distance between these spouts and the outer extremes of the automobile make the task of adding oil difficult nonetheless. In addition, many engines are designed which require adding oil through apertures which are near the center of the engine and therefore an extended distance from the vehicle perimeter. Vehicle operators have attempted to meet these problems by using a variety of devices such as funnels and the like. However, the use and storage of such devices is often as messy as the direct introduction of motor oil without their use.
The basic problem lies in the need to invert the oil container in a manner which avoids spilling oil onto the vehicle engine or associated components within the restricted access of the typical engine compartment.
Manufacturers of motor oil products have attempted to meet this need by providing various types of extendable spouts on the oil containers or spout extensions which are provided as an add on or premium item. These attempts have, to date, met with very limited success and a solution remains evasive. The problem is further exacerbated by the extreme economic pressure upon the manufacturers of motor oil products. Because the oil and its processing are expensive and because competition in the marketplace is extremely price sensitive, motor oil manufacturers must seek to minimize the costs associated with bottling and packaging the oil products. Thus, very little additional money is available within the product price to support complex or expensive bottling concepts for the sake of user convenience. In addition, the filling or bottling process of motor oil producers is an extremely automated high speed operation which yields substantial economic advantage but which is extremely intolerant of design changes of the bottle or its cap.
As a result, there remains a need in the art for a low cost and effective structure for facilitating the ease and cleanliness of adding motor oil to the typical motor vehicle. There remains a further need in the art to accomplish such an improved system without sacrificing the economic advantage associated with the present high speed automated mass production bottling processes used by most, if not all, manufacturers.